FN Dish

Crave Fried Chicken Episode: Facts and Thoughts

With any half-hour episode of
Crave, there are hundreds of facts and thoughts I don't get to share. If you watched this past Monday, thank you. If you missed it, well, suffice to say, your chicken knowledge is in serious decline.

Fried Chicken Facts and Thoughts

FACT: Chickens are the closest living relative to T. rex. They got the short end of that evolutionary stick.

THOUGHT: I realized that my ultimate fried chicken would be crossbred with a spider so that it would have eight drumsticks.

FACT: In China, KFC sells Irish Fried Chicken dipped in Bailey’s liqueur. Next time you’re at a local watering hole, ask for a drumstick in your snifter.

FACT: Alektrophobia is the fear of chickens. I only fear chickens if they’re uncooked.

FACT: The average American eats about 80 pounds of chicken a year. I did my part in one episode -- your turn.

FACT: A chicken's heart beats about 300 times per minute, which means they're constantly panicked. I feel the same when my wife turns on particular reality shows.

THOUGHT: No other food, save for cake batter, boasts about being “finger-licking.” To lick food off one’s fingers is so unpretentious, so defiantly messy and indulgent, that you have to like it -- it’s the Pabst Blue Ribbon of food.

FACT: Until the 1960s, chicken was more expensive than beef and veal.

FACT: After Kentucky Fried Chicken made people millionaires, it seemed everyone had a fried chicken chain. Minnie Pearl of the Grand Ole Opry signed a deal for 1,400 Minnie Pearl’s Fried Chicken outlets. Aretha Franklin had her own chain. James Brown opened Golden Platter. Mickey Mantle had his own. It was the food truck of its day.

Follow me on Twitter and tell me what you're craving: @T_R0Y (that's a zero, not a letter).